{"id":16525,"date":"2025-05-02T00:11:12","date_gmt":"2025-05-02T00:11:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/16525\/"},"modified":"2025-05-02T00:11:12","modified_gmt":"2025-05-02T00:11:12","slug":"ravens-mark-andrews-returns-home-to-help-arizonas-next-generation-of-tight-ends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/16525\/","title":{"rendered":"Ravens&#8217; Mark Andrews returns home to help Arizona&#8217;s next generation of tight ends"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Whether it is dealing with Type 1 diabetes as an elite athlete or helping youths find their football paths, Mark Andrews is willing to help.<\/p>\n<p>On Wednesday, April 30, the <a href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/football\/nfl\/teams\/baltimore-ravens\/366\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Baltimore Ravens;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Baltimore Ravens<\/a> tight end, along with the <a href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/football\/nfl\/teams\/arizona-cardinals\/355\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Cardinals;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Cardinals<\/a>&#8216; tight end Trey McBride, were at Mesa Westwood High, working 26 high school tight ends through drills in the 2nd annual Rockin&#8217; Protein Tight End Academy.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>They were there to help the next generation of Arizona high school tight ends, which included ALA Queen Creek&#8217;s Talan Scott, one of the top class of 2027 football recruits in the state.<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"Baltimore Ravens tight end was back home in Arizona, helping youths wanting to play tight end, during an academy at Westwood High School on April 30, 2025.\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"960\" height=\"641\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"standard-img\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/88f3085bb43519cfc5c43ddd9b2ebd30.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Baltimore Ravens tight end was back home in Arizona, helping youths wanting to play tight end, during an academy at Westwood High School on April 30, 2025.<\/p>\n<p>Andrews was The Arizona Republic&#8217;s 2012 high school Football Player of the Year as a junior, when he set receiving records as a jumbo wide receiver at Scottsdale Desert Mountain. The 2014 Desert Mountain graduate, who was a two-time All-Arizona football player, went on to star at tight end at Oklahoma and now with the Ravens.<\/p>\n<p>Andrews bought a house about two minutes away from where he grew up in Scottsdale, making this his offseason home.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s an incredible event for Rockin&#8217; Protein to be putting this together,&#8221; Andrews said. &#8220;It&#8217;s an incredible company. The people putting this on are awesome.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Just being out here with these kids and seeing how hard that they work, there&#8217;s a lot of talent. To be here with Trey, we&#8217;re able to give them what we know. We&#8217;re two of the people at the highest level. They can learn a lot. We can give back to these kids. I&#8217;ve been in their shoes.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Andrews played for Desert Mountain from 2010-13, where he competed at an extremely high level with Type 1 diabetes. He feels he can help others in his shoes know it&#8217;s possible to reach the highest of heights with proper management and taking care of their bodies.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;That hits home for me,&#8221; Andrews said about managing diabetes. &#8220;Seeing kids with it, I know exactly what they&#8217;re going through. Living with Type 1 diabetes is not the easiest thing in the world. It&#8217;s 24-7. Just being able to show they can do anything they want in life is important.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;They just need to continue to work hard and take care of their health. I love being part of the community, because it&#8217;s a close-knit group and there&#8217;s so many good people in it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"Baltimore Ravens tight end Mark Andrews (89) runs with the ball against the Seattle Seahawks during the third quarter at M&amp;T Bank Stadium in Baltimore on Nov. 5, 2023.\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"960\" height=\"640\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"standard-img\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/5b6ae95537968827ca70181ca59cbd3f.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Baltimore Ravens tight end Mark Andrews (89) runs with the ball against the Seattle Seahawks during the third quarter at M&amp;T Bank Stadium in Baltimore on Nov. 5, 2023.<\/p>\n<p>The tight end position has been in the news this offseason.<\/p>\n<p>After McBride became the highest-paid tight end in the NFL, the San Francisco 49ers extended George Kittle with a new contract earlier this week, making him the highest-paid NFL.<\/p>\n<p>Andrews, who in 2021 signed a four-year, $56 million contract with the Ravens, is among the six highest-paid NFL tight ends.<\/p>\n<p>But the Ravens also are impressed by young tight end Isaiah Likely, who is coming off a strong season and will see his rookie contract expire at the end of the 2025 season. Andrews had a career-best 11 touchdown catches and 55 catches in the 2024 season.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Andrews is focused on rebounding from last year&#8217;s disappointing end to the season. He dropped a potential game-tying two-point conversion in a 27-25 playoff loss to the Buffalo Bills.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve been incredibly focused,&#8221; Andrews said. &#8220;I think each year I&#8217;ve been able to learn and grow. My diet, my work ethic, all that good stuff, I feel in better shape than I&#8217;ve ever been in. And that&#8217;s a tribute to learning with my teammates through everything.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m incredibly hungry to get back out there this year. We have a lot to prove, not only personally but as a team. I&#8217;m very hungry to get back and play this next game.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">To suggest human-interest story ideas and other news, reach Obert at <a href=\"https:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/article\/mailto:richard.obert@arizonarepublic.com?subject=human-interest%20story%20ideas\" data-ylk=\"slk:richard.obert@arizonarepublic.com;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">richard.obert@arizonarepublic.com<\/a>\u00a0or 602-316-8827. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter: <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/azc_obert\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:@azc_obert;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">@azc_obert<\/a><\/p>\n<p>This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.azcentral.com\/story\/sports\/high-school\/2025\/05\/01\/baltimore-ravens-mark-andrews-comes-home-help-high-school-football-players\/83394693007\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Baltimore Ravens&#039; Mark Andrews comes home to help HS football players;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Baltimore Ravens&#8217; Mark Andrews comes home to help HS football players<\/a><\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Whether it is dealing with Type 1 diabetes as an elite athlete or helping youths find their football&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16526,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2052],"tags":[375,184,117,2282,53,8604,7,8606,6066,4698,759,6,169,252,6042,8605],"class_list":{"0":"post-16525","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-baltimore-ravens","8":"tag-arizona","9":"tag-baltimore","10":"tag-baltimore-ravens","11":"tag-baltimoreravens","12":"tag-buffalo-bills","13":"tag-desert-mountain","14":"tag-football","15":"tag-football-player","16":"tag-george-kittle","17":"tag-isaiah-likely","18":"tag-mark-andrews","19":"tag-nfl","20":"tag-ravens","21":"tag-san-francisco-49ers","22":"tag-trey-mcbride","23":"tag-type-1-diabetes"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114435344602624207","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16525"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16525\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}